De Blasio's Park Slope housing plan opens old wounds

A 2003 rezoning of Park Slope aimed to curb mismatched development like this. The city is trying again.

Back in 2003, then-City Councilman Bill de Blasio signed off on a Park Slope rezoning that spawned tall, lifeless buildings along the Brooklyn neighborhood's Fourth Avenue border. Now residents are channeling that bitter experience against Mr. de Blasio, who as mayor has sent city planners back with a proposal to deliver the affordable housing and aesthetics that the last one never did.

"It's hogwash," said Bo Samajopouols, who has lived near the corner of Fourth Avenue and 16th Street for nearly four decades and eyes the city's Planning Department with skepticism. "These are the same people who destroyed our neighborhood." The administration's Zoning for Quality and Affordability Text Amendment aims to encourage architecture that meshes with the historic brownstone area while creating affordable units for families and seniors. What worries locals, however, is that to do all that, the city wants to slightly relax the strictures that govern the shape, height and look of buildings. The battle in Park Slope is one of several around the city touched off by City Hall's attempts to retool so-called contextual zoning undertaken by the Bloomberg administration. Those measures helped preserve the character of many neighborhoods by limiting the scale and shape of new construction on mid-block parcels while pushing to the margins the bigger buildings desperately needed to add housing. Now, in Park Slope and elsewhere, the de Blasio administration wants to tweak the formula to foster more interesting and numerous apartments while discouraging the bland boxes that have sprouted in recent years. Residents, though, are not convinced. Stroll down Park Slope's Sixth Avenue, and it's clear why they want to preserve the area's look. Bluestone sidewalks are flanked by trees on one side and stately brownstones with lush gardens on the other. Preserving that, say local activists, hinges on three hard-edged rules: height limits, setback requirements and curb-cut prohibitions. Restrictions on height compel new buildings to adhere to a uniform roof line, while the setback rules require the fronts of buildings to form a cohesive street wall. Outlawing curb cuts for driveways ensures that the small open spaces in front of the rowhouses boast flowers and shrubs, not Audis and Volvos. "[They] are a big reason why people get a good feeling from walking down the street and like living here," said Craig Hammerman, district manager of Community Board 6. "That is what our neighborhood was designed as, and that is the general design framework that people want to see remain for years to come."

Curbing their enthusiasm

Ironically, the Bloomberg administration recognized all that when it picked Park Slope as one of the first neighborhoods to get such qualities codified. The 2003 rezoning solidified restrictions for most of a 110-block area west of Prospect Park, between President Street to the north and 15th Street to the south—but there was a catch.

While curbing development in one part of the neighborhood, the city encouraged it in another, allowing much taller buildings to replace low-rise industrial properties along Fourth Avenue, the area's western border. Some community leaders attribute the pushback on the current plan in part to the outcome on Fourth Avenue—big, homely properties without affordable housing and initially lacking the active ground-floor uses sought at the time by Mr. de Blasio and activist Brad Lander, who later took Mr. de Blasio's council seat. "I think Fourth Avenue was largely a failure," said Mr. Lander. David Yassky, who was then -councilman for a section of Fourth Avenue, also wanted to mandate affordable units but compromised with Bloomberg officials to instead let developers pay into a housing fund. He came to regret the deal. Now, more than 10 years hence, Mr. de Blasio's plan to stretch height limits in districts across the city and make other allowances for varying the street wall have met with resistance in Park Slope, where height limits would be raised by five feet or more, if affordable or senior housing is included. The administration insists the changes are needed to spur more inexpensive apartments for those who need them, while making new, larger buildings less bland. "We're not talking about giving people more stories on their buildings," said Howard Slatkin, an official at the Department of City Planning. "This is about making the existing number of stories work better." But Peter Bray, a member of the Park Slope Civic Association, isn't buying it. He notes that in pricey Park Slope, developers have little incentive to build affordable apartments. In addition, he is skeptical of how much senior housing will be constructed with funding limited. The community board is still studying the proposal, but Mr. Hammerman noted that there are some provisions—such as boosting resiliency in parts of the neighborhood that are prone to flooding—that the board supports. "We're not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater," he said. As for Mr. Lander, he opposes the five-foot height increase absent some sort of guarantee that architects will actually design a better-looking product. "I believe that you can have smart, well-designed and equitable growth that strengthens livable and inclusive communities," he said. "But that does take good planning."

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